From David Bianco; Selma, Oregon
Editor,

On Jan. 20 Perpetua Forests Company filed notice with the Oregon Dept. of Forestry that they intend to use White City-based Pacific Air Research to perform the herbicide spraying. The area that the treatment is intended to occur on is located on the eastern flank of the McMullin Creek valley over a clear-cut area that is visible from Lake Selmac Park and located mostly within a half mile distance from the lake.

The clear-cut area covers roughly 70 acres of hillside that directly feeds a small creek tributary that drains across the Flying B Bar Ranch, and eventually feeds into McMullin Creek which is the main watershed feeder into Lake Selmac. At the closest point, the clear-cut to be sprayed is only 2500 feet from the Lake, and maybe only 1500 feet from Lake Selmac Park Boundary. In addition, the Flying B Bar Ranch operates a rose farm, and a natural grass-fed livestock ranch on the valley floor directly adjacent to the proposed site.

Recent reports have evidenced that aerial spraying of herbicides even on a still day can travel from 1 – 4 miles due to the air turbulence caused by the helicopter aircraft that are used to perform the spraying. In this case, Perpetua has notified the ODF that they intend to spray alone or a combination of three herbicides, Hexazinone, Clopyrelid, and Atrazine. All three of these chemicals have explicit stated toxicity to aquatic organisms. Atrazine has already been banned by the European Union.

Concerned McMullin Creek residents became aware of the intention only through a distribution of information made available through the ODF. I am one of the closest property owners. As owner of the Flying B Bar Ranch, I am concerned for the safety of my 3,000 garden grown rose bushes which are the backbone of my preserved flower business. I have attempted to get senior management at Perpetua to use any methods that don’t involve herbicides on the clear-cut. However, at this time Jennifer Phillippi, president of Perpetua, has not been willing to make such a commitment. I  feel that not only could the herbicides being sprayed cause mist drift that could kill my rose bushes, but that even if Perpetua was to block all runoff of water from the clear-cut, or even spray with ground-based equipment, all that water containing the herbicides would contaminate the aquifer that feeds my wells that are used to water not just the roses, but the fields of grass harvested to feed more than 80 head of livestock.

It is quite possible that this single act could endanger our entire operation here. We also have concern for my in-law’s health. My father-in-law, John Brown, has substantial lung issues due to an industrial fire suppression accident earlier in life. John has issues whenever they start burning slash piles and fears that the herbicide mist from a spray occurring only 1000 feet from his residence may substantially affect his breathing in a permanent way.  Then there is the consideration of the fish population in Lake Selmac, along with the associated insect populations which are also affected by the proposed herbicides which feed the fish. It seems quite a chance to be taking with one of Josephine County’s premier parks for fishing recreation.

This is not the first time that this kind of situation has occurred in Selma. Other residents of the town have expended substantial resources with little results on other herbicide spraying situations. The practice of using herbicides to entirely destroy all competitive flora to conifer plantings has become commonplace in modern forestry management practice. The fact is that “forestry” is really a misnomer in this day in age, as a forest is a bio-diverse ecology that creates a balance between many species of flora and fauna. Current purported “forestry” practice is to try to bypass decades of natural forest succession to create exclusively conifer farms at the cost of animal habitats, soil nutrient depletion, soil stability, and other ecological and environmental imbalances. Essentially, “forestry” has become “conifer farm management”, what are essentially two different sciences.

One difficulty is that Jennifer Phillippi, one of the owners of Perpetua Forests Co, sits on the Oregon Department of Forestry Board, the board which by the ODF organization chart is placed at the top of their organizational structure. It’s a bit like putting the fox in the henhouse as a member of “Poultry Security Committee”, having a member of the board being the owner of a company doing conifer farming on their private lands in Southern Oregon.

This leads to a second issue. The ODF has little control over such actions on private logging company properties. There is currently only a “notice” that is filed with ODF. Such sprayings do not require an application process which allows for public opinions and objections to be filed and reviewed by the ODF prior to such operations being started by logging companies on their own land. This is true even if the properties in question are the watersheds for county and state owned parks and forests. Further, people are only notified if they purchase a subscription to such notices at the cost of $5 per land section with a minimum of 5 subscriptions.

It is hoped by bringing this situation the public’s awareness, and through public outcry that Perpetua may be convinced not to aerially spray herbicide, or any other herbicide related activity on their clear-cuts on the McMullin Creek valley. Though the residents of McMullin Creek valley are hopeful, the two issues above lead them to believe that the situation is likely hopeless without more people taking issue.